
mm 










































































































































COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 




























Ol-ntA 


T 


Q-n/vjvaA. 


\roajg.Qo 


SALMON 


COMPILED BY WORKERS OF THE 
WRITERS’ PROGRAM OF THE WORK 
PROJECTS ADMINISTRATION IN THE 
COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA 


JUNIOR PRESS BOOKS 

albertXwh itman 

& 4-CO 

CHICAGO 1940 



rtia'i 

5 3 C_5 

PENNSYLVANIA DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION 
State-wide Sponsor of the 
Pennsylvania Writers' Project 

FEDERAL WORKS AGENCY 
John M. Carmody, Administrator 


WORK PROJECTS ADMINISTRATION 
F. C. Harrington, Commissioner 
Florence Kerr, Assistant Commissioner 
Philip Mathews, State Administrator 


COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 


Co-sponsored and copyrighted, 1940, by Division of Extension Education 
Board of Public Education, Philadelphia 
RECEIVED 


$ 

\ 


mv - 1 1940 



FOREWORD 


Salmon is the fifteenth of thirty booklets 
in the Elementary Science Series. It was pre¬ 
pared by the Philadelphia Unit of the Penn¬ 
sylvania Writers’ Project, sponsored by the 
Pennsylvania Department of Public Instruc¬ 
tion. 

This booklet, written by Mark Bartman, was 
edited by Katharine Britton of the Editorial 
office. 

Acknowledgment is made to Dr. Robert C. 
Van Dusen, Superintendent of the Philadelphia 
Aquarium, for acting as consultant to assure 
accuracy of the text and illustrations. 

Cover design was done by Carl Shaffer and all 
inside illustrations by Edward Giordano, both 
of the Pennsylvania Art Project, under the 
direction of Michael Gallagher. 

C. C. Lesley 

State Supervisor 



FOR HUNDREDS OF YEARS THE INDIANS HAVE CAUGHT SALMON 
BY SPEARING THEM. 



SALMON 

KING OF THE RIVER 

To many people salmon is simply 
something that comes out of a can. Yet 
first it is a living, breathing, leaping 
fish, so handsome and strong that it is 
called the "King of the River.” 

The salmon is one of the swiftest, the 
mightiest, the bravest of all the fish that 
dart through the northern waters of 
America. It looks like a king of fishes, 
too. In its sleek coat are the colors of 
a summer evening when the sun goes 
down and the sky is a silvery blue. 

There’s a true story about the salmon’s 
strength and bravery. Once an eagle 
was circling overhead, and far below in 
the river he spotted a salmon. Down, 

5 


down the eagle swooped. As the king 
of the river rose to the surface — swish! 
The strong claws of the eagle had seized 
him. 

The salmon squirmed and battled 
madly. The eagle could hardly keep his 
hold. Digging his claws deeper into the 
fish’s back, he tried to rise into the air. 
The salmon struggled so hard that the 
load was too much for the eagle. Unable 
now to tear his claws free, the great bird 
was drawn under the water and drowned. 

FISH FAMILIES 

A man named Pliny, who lived long 
ago in Italy, gave the salmon its name. 
He called it salmo. That was a name 
he made from a Latin word, satire, which 
means to leap. The salmon is a real 
jumper. It is a thrilling sight to watch 
a run of salmon making their way up 
a river, flinging themselves high into the 
air to pass rocks, rapids, or even falls. 

6 


Men who study fish call a number of 
different fishes by the name Salmonidae. 
This means the salmon family. The 
Salmonidae are the very highest type of 
fish. All are alike in certain ways, 
though they may be different in other 
ways. They have soft fins, a long body, 
and a special kind of fin on their backs. 
And all of them are found only in the 
northern waters of the world. 

The trout belongs to this family, so he 
is a cousin of the salmon. The Indians, 
who watched nature very closely, knew 
that the trout and the salmon were re¬ 
lated. They even made up stories about 
trout that turned into salmon. 

Many of the Salmonidae are such 
distant cousins and look so different that 
it is hard to believe they belong to the 
same family. But all salmon are closely 
related, and so all look very much alike. 
Their heads are shaped somewhat like 
ice cream cones. They have good strong 

7 


teeth. Their bodies are covered with 
scales and speckled with black spots. 

Yet there are differences among them 
just as there are differences among 
people. There are white, black, red, and 
yellow people, and each kind comes from 
a different part of the world. In the 
same way, there are many kinds of 
salmon. Each is different in size and 
color, and has its home in special waters. 

ATLANTIC SALMON 

The salmon of the Atlantic Ocean has 
a slender, graceful body. Its head is 
rather small and so is its mouth. Its 
body, covered with large scales, is silvery 
on the bottom, brownish on the back. 
On a grown-up, the black spots that 
speckle the body are usually shaped like 
an X. 

Although these kings of the Atlantic 
feed only on small things — fish eggs 
and little creatures of the sea, such as 


shrimps and young crabs, some of them 
have been known to grow heavier than 
eighty pounds. That’s as much as a big 
boy. Most of those caught, however, 
weigh only about ten pounds. 



There was a time when the shore 
waters of the Atlantic were the home of 
great numbers of salmon. The writings 
of the people of Europe tell us how much 
these fine fish were valued there for 
hundreds of years. And when the first 
settlers came to America, they found 
that salmon was the chief food of the 
Indians of the coast. Soon it was one of 
the chief foods of the settlers, too. 


9 


So many salmon were caught in those 
days that many people tired of eating 
this tasty food. Today there are few 
Atlantic salmon left. This is partly be¬ 
cause enough salmon were not born each 
year to replace those that were caught. 
Besides, the Atlantic coast and the 
streams flowing into the ocean became 
so busy with trade and industry that it 
was hard for the salmon to live there. 

Now there are not enough Atlantic 
salmon to make fishing for them a good 
business. There are some around the 
British Isles, because the people of Great 
Britain have tried to protect their salmon. 
They can be found too up around Green¬ 
land, Iceland, Russia, and the Scandi¬ 
navian countries. And farther north, 
perhaps even up toward the North Pole, 
salmon may be running free in numbers 
great enough to make food for many 
people. 

In American waters Atlantic salmon 


10 


means one thing. Sport! Up along the 
coast of Maine and north to Labrador, 
the fishermen go after the fighting fish 
with line and rod. And to them the 
fact that there are not so many salmon 
left just makes the game more exciting. 


PACIFIC SALMON 

There is good sport fishing in the 
coastal waters and the rivers of the 



Pacific Ocean too. But Pacific salmon 
have a much greater importance than 

11 


that. They supply millions of dollars’ 
worth of food to the world every year. 

There are five kinds of Pacific salmon 
found in American waters — chinook, 
sockeye, silver, pink, and dog salmon. 

The chinook is also called quinnat, 
tyee, spring, sacramento, and king — all 
according to the place where it is found. 
No other salmon compares with it in 
size and strength. The biggest chinooks 
weigh more than 100 pounds, and most 
of those caught weigh no less than 
twenty-two. 

In the spring the chinook is silvery 
all over, with round black spots, and 
the sides of its head shine like metal. 
In the fall the back turns dusky or dull 
red, the sides are tinted with blue, while 
the lower part remains silvery. 

The rich salmon color of its flesh makes 
the chinook one of the best-liked of all 
the salmon. Once in a while this fish 
plays a trick on the fisherman and turns 
12 


out to be red on one side and white on the 
other. No one knows why this happens. 

Down around Monterey Bay, great 
numbers of Chinooks can be seen in the 
spring feeding on the large schools of 
herring and sardines near the coast of 
California. But in most places there are 
not enough of them to be worth much 
for trade. 

It is the sockeye — the beautiful blue- 
back or red salmon — that is most im¬ 



portant of all salmon as a food fish. One 
reason is that, like the chinook, it re¬ 
mains a bright red when it is canned. 
Besides, it is caught easily in very large 

13 



numbers. During egg-laying time sock- 
eyes can be seen by the million in certain 
rivers of the coast, crowding and leaping, 
on their way back to the place where 
they were born. 

The sockeye is smaller than the chi- 
nook. Even the largest sockeye does not 
grow longer than three feet or heavier 
than about twelve pounds. Usually it 
is about two feet long and weighs from 
three to seven or eight pounds. Its back 
is a clear bright unspeckled blue, and 
its sides are silver. 

The silver salmon is not so important 
for food, mostly because its flesh is not 
such a bright and pleasing color as the 
sockeye or the chinook. There’s another 
reason too why fishermen don’t depend 
much on this fish for trade. It’s a smart 
fish, and so when the fishermen spread 
nets for it at the mouths of streams, the 
silver salmon just don’t go into those 
nets. 


14 


The silver salmon has a number of 
other names. It’s called the coho, 
hooped, kisutch, silverside, or white 
salmon. These names tell us something 
about its looks. Most of its body is silver, 
though the upper parts are bluish-green 
with a few faint black spots. It is a 



SILVER OR COHO 


little larger than the sockeye, and some¬ 
times weighs thirty pounds. Most silver 
salmon never grow heavier than twelve 
pounds, however. 

The chum or dog salmon is usually 
about the same size as the silver salmon, 
though a few chums grow as heavy as 
forty-five pounds. But the chum is not 
very pretty nor very good to eat. Its 

15 


body is dirty silver in color and its flesh 
is pale yellow. Up around Alaska, where 
it is caught in greatest numbers, only 



the natives use it and they dry it to feed 
to their dogs in winter. 

The pink, or humpback, salmon is the 
smallest of the Pacific salmon, but it is 


o 



PINK OR HUMPBACK 


very important today as a food. Its flesh 
is not so tasty-looking as that of the 

16 


sockeye, and so pink salmon costs much 
less. Humpbacks were given their 
strange name because in the fall of the 
year the males are very much out of 
shape, and have a real hump on their 
backs. Still they are pretty to look at, 
with their blue, speckled backs and 
silvery sides. 

SALMON OF INLAND WATERS 

Not all salmon live in the ocean or 
in rivers that empty into the sea. Some 
live in inland waters of the north, es¬ 
pecially in New England and Eastern 
Canada. Here there are two kinds of 
salmon, Sebago and Ouananiche. Both 
are relatives of the Atlantic salmon. 
But these landlocked salmon are smaller 
and plumper than ocean salmon, with 
harder heads, larger scales, and different 
coloring. 

The Ouananiche is a real favorite with 
sportsmen. They say no other fish of 

17 


any kind puts up so good a battle when 
hooked. In fact, they often call it "the 
leaping fighter.” 

Even the name Ouananiche tells some¬ 
thing about the fish. It is an Indian 



OUANANICHE OR LEAPING FIGHTER 


word, and it means Look there! What 
is that? Surely this must have been 
named when some Indian braves were 
startled to see the strong, active little 
fish leaping high out of the water. 

THE RUN 

All kinds of salmon live in much the 
same way. They are born in the beds 
of creeks and rivers, stay there for a 
18 



while, and then swim down to the sea, 
or into a large lake if they are land¬ 
locked salmon. When the time comes 
to lay eggs, or spawn, they go back up 
the stream from which they came. 

Salmon do not live in this way because 
they think it the best way. They can¬ 
not think. Nature has made them in 
such a way that when they reach the 
right age, when their spawning time 
comes, some unknown call leads them, 
even from great distances, back to the 
place of their birth. Often they return 
even to the very branch of the stream 
in which they were born. And year after 
year each kind of salmon in each stream 
begins its run at exactly the same time. 

When the time for the run comes, the 
salmon begin to move in from many 
directions toward the mouth of the stream 
which was their first home. 

At first they go slowly. They swim 
about as if they were playing. Some 

19 





















































































































































































































*\ III" 







































































































































of them may even turn and go out to 
sea again, not ready for the run this 
year. But more and more keep coming 
in. They stop playing and move forward 
in earnest. Nothing can stop them 
now. 

The salmon that run in the fall go 
only a little way upstream. Sometimes 
they seem to be in such a great hurry 
to reach their spawning ground that they 
go up tiny brooks only a few inches deep 
and die from lack of water. But the 
salmon that run in the spring some¬ 
times go one or two thousand miles up¬ 
stream. 

During the whole long trip, all the 
salmon’s strength and all their time is 
spent on only one thing — reaching then- 
goal. They do not even eat. And nature 
has prepared them well for the hard 
journey. When they leave the ocean 
they are husky, sleek, well-fed fish, with 
dark backs and silver black-spotted sides. 
22 


They are at the very peak of then- 
weight. 

Thousands of them move upstream to¬ 
gether. When they come to a narrow 
channel, they float in place, each waiting 
his turn to go on. They may be so closely 
packed here that they make a bridge over 
which a man could walk. 

Against strong currents and swift 
rapids the salmon make their way. 

Sometimes they must leap almost 
straight up over falls a dozen feet high. 

No one knows exactly how the salmon 
makes its great leaps. One idea is that 
it begins by moving its tail and fins very 
fast. Suddenly it bends its body, just as 
a man bends a bow to shoot an arrow. 
Then — sping! It snaps back! This 
sends it shooting from the water. If the 
salmon doesn’t make the jump at the 
first try, it jumps again. It keeps on 
trying until it either succeeds or dies 
from wounds or weariness. 


23 



THE SALMON LADDER IS LIKE A LONG STAIRWAY WHICH THE 
FISH CAN CLIMB EASILY. 


As the salmon fight on, hardships and 
lack of food destroy their grace and 
beauty. Their bright silvery color is lost. 
They become ugly, lean, and slimy. 
Heads and bodies are out of shape, tails 
and fins are torn, big sores show where 
the scales have been scraped off. 

There are other changes too in the 


24 

















male salmon. Their lower jaws become 
sharper and sharper, and finally both 
jaws become strongly hooked. The front 
teeth grow sharper and longer, often a 
half-inch long. Sometimes their mouths 
cannot even be closed because of these 
teeth. 

SPAWNING 

When they have gone far enough, each 
father and mother salmon choose a place 
for their nest in quick flowing water, 
about one to four feet deep. Then with 
tail and nose the father digs a furrow in 
the stony river bed, like the furrow a 
farmer makes with his plow in the 
ground. 

For the next few days the mother 
salmon is very busy. Usually she lays 
about nine to ten hundred eggs for each 
pound of her own weight. If she weighs 
ten pounds, there may be ten thousand 
eggs. She must lay a great number 
because many will be lost. Some will 

25 


never hatch. Most of those that do will 
die. Young fish do not have such an 
easy time as young children. They must 
shift for themselves. If the mother 



THE MOTHER SALMON LAYS THOUSANDS OF EGGS, WHILE THE 
FATHER GUARDS THE NEST. 


salmon laid only a few eggs, perhaps 
there would be no young salmon to grow 
up. 

All the time that the mother salmon 
is spawning, the father salmon is busy 
protecting the nest from other fish, big 
and little, that want to destroy his home. 

26 









By the time the spawning is over, he is 
more torn and weary than ever from his 
many battles. 

Now there is nothing more to be done 
at the nest. Nature will take care of the 
rest. The father and mother can leave. 

Most salmon spawn only once. When 
they leave the spawning ground, they 
drift down the river, wasted in body from 
lack of food, too tired even to keep their 
balance. They have done their great 
work, and they are ready to die. 

GROWING UP 

Now the tiny eggs lie in their bed of 
gravel. Something is happening to 
them. Something in them is growing. 
Between 120 and 180 days pass. An eye 
forms, then a backbone. But each young 
one still has the yolk of its egg in a sack 
under its body. These queer, shapeless 
little creatures are called alevins. 

For several weeks the alevin hides 

27 


among the stones. It eats nothing, soak¬ 
ing food from the yolk sack until all of 
that has disappeared. 

By this time the little salmon looks 
like a real fish, though a very tiny one. 
Now it is a parr. It has a dark-banded 
red-spotted coat, with light blue streaks 



BABY SALMON 


along the sides. The parr looks so little 
like a grown-up salmon in coloring that 
for a long time people thought it was an 
entirely different kind of fish. 

Hundreds of millions of these parrs 
swim around the spawning ground, but 
there are not so many of them as there 
were alevins. Many of the alevins died. 
Many of the parrs, too, will disappear. 
They move about in search of food, learn¬ 
ing to use their fins better and better. 
28 


Only the fastest and the strongest will 
escape the bigger fish and the birds that 
are seeking a tasty mouthful. 

Some young salmon stay in the streams 
only a few months. But most do not go 
down to the sea or the lakes for more 
than a year. Some remain in their early 
home as long as three years. 

By the time the salmon are ready to 
go to sea, they have changed again. 
Their coats have become silvery, like 
the polished armor of a knight of old. 
Now they are called smolts. Although 
they may be several years old then, they 
weigh only a few ounces. Most of their 
growing will be done in the sea, when 
they will become grilse. 

It is in the sea that the mystery be¬ 
gins. No one really knows what the 
grilse do. Swiftly they grow large, 
strong of body, swift of fin. They are 
mighty hunters of the deep, feared by 
smaller fish. Perhaps they go way out 

29 


to sea, to distant feeding grounds. Per¬ 
haps they stay close to shore. 

And then, when they have reached 
their greatest beauty and strength, they 
are stirred by the call to return to the 
spawning grounds. 

Men have made a great effort to find 
out how old the salmon are when they 
spawn. They know now that the age is 
different for each kind. Some spawn 
when they are two years old. Others 
wait until the sixth or seventh years. 

This was discovered in a very interest¬ 
ing way. Men noticed that the scales of 
the fish had rings, just as the inside of 
a tree does, and they studied these rings. 
They found that every year more rings 
are formed on each scale. In the summer 
wide rings are formed. The rings that 
grow in winter are narrower. For every 
year each scale has a set of wide and 
narrow rings. By counting the rings on 
scales of salmon caught just after they 

30 


entered the streams to spawn, men can 
tell at what age each kind of salmon begins 
its rim. 

THE CATCH 

It is during the runs up the streams 
that the fishermen catch most of their 
salmon. The salmon in the sea are too 
young and too hard to get. Those that 
have gone far upstream are not worth 
catching because they are thin and 
scarred from their journey. 

When the run is on, a stream may 
look like a solid river of fish. In Puget 
Sound at certain times of the year noth¬ 
ing but fish can be seen for several miles. 
One time a count was made of salmon 
swimming up Wood River, Alaska. More 
than two and one-half million fish were 
counted in less than two months! 

Since the run begins in each salmon 
stream at the same time each year, 
fishermen know just when to get ready 
and where to set their traps. 


31 



THESE FISHERMEN ARE HAULING IN A GREAT NET FULL OF SALMON. 






















































There are many ways in which the 
salmon are trapped. One way is to sink 
great cage-like nets off the shore right 
in the path of the fish. The fish swim 
into the first section of the net cage 
without knowing it. They move from 
one net room to another, and fall at last 
into a great trap that holds many thou¬ 
sands of salmon. 

Another kind of net is the purse seine. 
This big net is carried on a boat called 
a seiner. When a school of salmon is 
sighted, the seiner is run close to them. 
One man gets into a rowboat, holding 
one end of the net, while the seiner circles 
the salmon with the net. The net then 
hangs straight up and down around the 
fish. Now the bottom of the net is drawn 
up by a rope that runs through rings in 
the lower edge of the net. The salmon 
are then held in a big bag from which 
they cannot escape. 

In rivers where the water flows swiftly, 

33 



IN SWIFT-FLOWING WATER A FISH WHEEL MAY BE USED TO CATCH SALMON. 


























































































































the salmon are often caught by means 
of a fish wheel. This looks somewhat 
like the wheel of an old mill. Around 
the rim of the wheel, wire nets are fas¬ 
tened, their openings facing downstream. 
As the wheel turns, one net after another 
dips into the water and scoops up the 
salmon swimming upstream. The fish 
are lifted high into the air and poured 
into the tank. All the fisherman has to 
do is sit and watch the tank fill up. 

CANNING 

Some salmon are sold fresh. Others 
are frozen, or smoked, or dried. But by 
far the greatest part of the catch is put 
up in cans. 

Most of the canneries are built near 
the fishing grounds, right by the water’s 
edge. Then the scows, or boats, loaded 
with salmon can come alongside to de¬ 
liver the fish or to take on canned fish. 

In the newer canneries most of the 

35 



SOME SALMON ARE PACKED TO BE SHIPPED LONG DISTANCES. 


work is done by machine. When the 
salmon arrive they are pitched on carriers 
that move on a belt to the killing room. 
This room must be kept very clean, of 
course. So it is flooded and scrubbed 
with salt water many times a day. 

In the killing room the salmon are 
placed on long tables. In the old days 

36 























Chinese laborers stood around the tables, 
cutting off fins, heads, and tails. The 
fish were then thrown on another moving 
belt and carried to the cleaning machines 
to have the scales and insides removed. 
Men still do the killing in some canner¬ 
ies, but in the newest ones their place 
has been taken by a machine called the 
Iron Chink. 

When the salmon have been well 
cleaned and the skin removed, the ma¬ 
chine dumps them into a tank of water. 
Then they are carried through a row of 
round knives that are tinning rapidly. 





THE CANNERY IS USUALLY BUILT NEAR THE FISHING GROUNDS, 
RIGHT BY THE WATER'S EDGE. 


37 





These knives cut the fish into the right 
size for the cans. 

Now the filling machine puts the right 
amount of fish and salt into each can. 
Then the closing machine draws all the 
air out of the can and rolls the cover on 
air tight so that the fish cannot spoil. The 
closed cans are placed in a special steam 
oven and cooked for ninety minutes. 

38 



















CANS ARE FILLED WITH SALMON. 

When the labels have been pasted on 
the cans, they are packed for shipping. 
Then out into the world the salmon goes. 










Every year about 700 million pounds 
of salmon are canned in the United 
States and Alaska. Besides that, salmon 



THIS IS A FLOATING CANNERY. THE SALMON ARE CANNED OR 
FROZEN FOR SHIPPING, RIGHT ON THE SHIP. 


is canned in large amounts in Canada, 
in Japan, and in Russia. It is not hard 
to see that salmon is one of our most 
important food fishes. 

40 






SPORT FISHING 

But many fishermen don’t go after 
salmon for food. All they want is the 
fun of catching it and letting other people 
know that they caught it. Such sport 
fishermen look down upon spearing and 
upon net and pot-hole fishing. They say 
none of these give the fish a chance to 
get away. 

In spearing, a man simply finds a 
place where there are many salmon, and 
thrusts his spear into the water. Up 
comes the spear with a fish wriggling on 
the end of it. This is the way the Indi¬ 
ans have fished for hundreds of years. 

In pot-hole fishing, the man stands 
near a water fall where the salmon are 
leaping upward. Sometimes when a 
salmon cannot make the full jump, it 
falls backward, and lands in a deep hole 
full of water, near the fall. The fisher¬ 
man just reaches down and lifts the fish 
from the pot-hole. Many bears catch 

41 


their fish in that way, waiting as pa¬ 
tiently at the hole as a cat does at a 
mouse hole. 

The sport fisherman catches his salmon 
with rod and line. The rod is made of 
light wood or metal. The line is a long 
strong cord or fine wire that is wound 
around a spool on the rod. This spool 
is called a reel. 

On the end of the line is a very strong 
hook, and here the fisherman fixes his 
bait. If he is fishing in the sea or in a 
lake, where the salmon are still eating, 
he baits the hook with pieces of herring, 
or some other inviting food. If he is 
fishing in streams, where the salmon 
are on the way to the spawning ground 
and will not eat, he must attract them 
in some other way. He may do it with 
a flat round piece of shining metal called 
a spoon, or with a brightly-painted piece 
of wood or metal called a plug. Or he 
may use a spinner with gay-colored 

42 


feathers that spin as the water flows 
past them. These are called lures. 

The fisherman keeps his boat where 
the water is flowing fast, or travels slowly 
along, letting the line trail behind in 
the water. Some salmon, seeing the 
bright moving lure, may snap at it. This 
is called striking. A fisherman never 
knows when he goes out in the morning 
whether the salmon will be striking that 
day. He may sit for hours while they 
just pass by his lure. 

But suppose some big salmon in a 
lively mood does strike at the shiner. 
Down his throat with it goes the big 
hook. There is a jerk on the line. 
Frightened and angry, the salmon darts 
away. The fisherman, his reel scream¬ 
ing as the line unwinds, allows the 
salmon enough line so that a sudden 
tug won’t break it. When the salmon 
swims close, he draws in the line. When 
the salmon swims away, he lets the 


line loose. This is called playing the 
fish. 

Thrashing about, tugging at the string, 
the salmon fights fiercely to be free. 
But even so glorious a fighter must tire 
at last. He becomes weaker and weaker. 
At last he can struggle no more. Slowly 
the fisherman draws him close to the 
boat, and takes him with a landing net. 

Sometimes the salmon gets away. He 
breaks the line or tears himself from 
the hook. When this happens, many 
fishermen are angry. But the better 
ones say that if a salmon is a good enough 
fighter to free himself, he deserves a 
cheer from all true sport fishermen. 

Many a salmon battle has gone down 
in fishermen’s history. There’s the story 
of the Atlantic salmon that was caught 
late one afternoon as he swam up a 
certain river. He battled all night and 
all of the next day, dashing madly up 
and down the stream. The first fisher- 

44 : ; 


man gave the rod to a second, who finally 
passed it to a third. Still the fish fought on. 

Twenty-two hours had passed since the 
first fisherman had felt the tug on his 
line that meant a bite. Suddenly, the 
salmon gave one great desperate jump. 
The rod in the man’s hand broke, the 
line snapped, and away went the salmon! 

No one knows what happened to that 
salmon, but it is pleasant to think that 
he had a long sweet rest and lived happily 
for many months afterwards. He was a 
fish that deserved to be called king of 
the river. 

TAKING CARE OF OUR SALMON 

So many salmon were caught every 
year that there was danger that they 
would become scarce, as the buffalo and 
other game have. So the United States 
Government set up places on certain 
streams to do nothing but raise salmon. 
These are called salmon hatcheries. 


45 


The first thing the hatchery has to do 
is to get eggs from which to hatch salmon. 
This is done by catching grown-up mother 





IN EACH OF THESE CASES ARE ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND 
SALMON EGGS THAT WILL BE PLANTED AT U. S. HATCHERIES. 

salmon and pressing out their eggs by 
hand. Then the eggs are placed in 
ponds. The little alevins and parrs can 

46 




























grow in peace there. No big fish are 
around to harm them, and they get plenty 
to eat. When the young salmon are 
big enough to take care of themselves, 
they are carried to the rivers and set 
free. In this way enough new fish are 
put back every year to take the place of 
those that are caught. 

The Government had another problem 
to solve. In some salmon rivers men 
had built dams over which the fish could 
not climb. In other streams were falls 
or rapids in which salmon were torn and 
bruised, or even killed. Some way had 
to be found for the fish to get past these 
places, or most of them would never get 
to the spawning grounds. 

One way was to build fish elevators 
in streams at one side of the dams. 
Salmon coming upstream swim into the 
fish elevator just as people walk into an 
elevator. As the gate closes, the elevator 
begins to fill with water, and the floor 

47 


begins to rise, carrying the fish up to the 
top of the dam. Then the floor tilts and 
the fish swim out, safe above the dam. 

Another way of helping the salmon 
was to build ladders. The ladder is like 
a stairway, with each step about one 
foot high. The salmon can leap easily 
from one step to the next, and when they 
reach the last one the dangerous waters 
are behind them. 

The Government also stops fishing on 
rivers where salmon are becoming scarce. 
It makes rules about what kind of nets 
may be used. This is done so that 
enough fish will get by the nets to the 
spawning grounds to lay eggs. The 
Government tries in every way to make 
certain that America will never lose its 
salmon, as some parts of Europe have. 


48 









Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Oct. 2006 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 
111 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township. PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 
































